Nostalgia & History > My First TV

On a warm July evening 1990, three “Baby-boats” accelerate a westbound TV through Kendallville, Indiana. The speed of the units as they passed were enough to send me to the top of a gravel pile some yards away, and by the time his tail-car had hammered the single diamond crossing (ex-PRR branch?) at the west end of town, I had moved again to the corner of a small cinderblock building. A pleasant vision of Conrail as something more than just pool units inside a Santa Fe consist was starting to form.

Too few had become the places where the dancing trailers and hunting flats beneath them backed one away with trepidation. The act of running piggybacks at passenger train speeds is always impressive, at a proper distance, proving Mom’s oft repeated admonition still prudent, “Not too close to the TV!”

–Mac

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The good old days..

What you witnessed was a Conrail operation that was beginning
to disappear at that time...4 motor power on TV and Mail trains.

3-5 unit sets were assigned to "van pools", which provided
good acceleration, plus the ability to maintain the 70 MPH
permitted on many sections of track.

Conrail switched to 6-motor power on TV/Mail trains, finding
that the transit times increased little, and that there were noticeable fuel savings, and example being 1000 gallons less
diesel fuel per train being used from Boston to St. Louis
using C40's.

In additon, CR reduced maximum speeds from 70 to 60 in the
early 1990's.

I'll agree, these 4 motored TV trains were awesome, especially
with GE's.

MF

The line at Kendalville was the GR&I, which PRR bought in the 1920's I think. It went
from Mackinac City down to Ft Wayne (GR&I=Grand Rapids and Indiana). Mostly gone now,
it's still in place from Petoskey MI to Cadillac MI, Grand Rapids MI to Kalamazoo MI,
and some small pieces of it in other areas left for industrial switching (the piece
in Kendalville is owned by Pioneer, and about about a mile south into town to a
couple industries. Diamond is no longer there.

Gentlemen:
Thank you for your comments and additional information. I dug out the log for that trip and the train was 78 cars and by me 7:15PM. One of the locals I ran into at Chesterton/Porter the next day said there was a parade in the evening and I had seen the lead train. He may have given me the TV number too, but it is not on my log.
–Mac

MacBeau Wrote:
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> Gentlemen:
> Thank you for your comments and additional
> information. I dug out the log for that trip and
> the train was 78 cars and by me 7:15PM. One of the
> locals I ran into at Chesterton/Porter the next
> day said there was a parade in the evening and I
> had seen the lead train. He may have given me the
> TV number too, but it is not on my log.

Yea, they always had the nightly TV parade that started just before
dark (well, in the summer anyway ;^) I think the first one was usually
westbound TV11.